Any discussion about non-specific Braumeister brewing techniques can be discussed here. E.g. "How to make a starter?", "What's the best way to store my grains?", "Which pH meter do you recommend?", ...

When brewing all grain, what do you do with steeping grains such as Carmel 60/80/etc. Do you grind them along with the base grains and toss them all into the pot? Or do you actually steep them for, say, 30 minutes before stirring in the base malts?

In my limited experience with AG, I've just run them thru the mill all at one time.. However harkening back to the Extract days.. it was separate. They didn't stay in the kettle for longer than the requited time for color and some flavor.

unless you have reason to do something different, just crush together and throw them in the mash tun together. some exceptions might be, you have a crappy mill and need to adjust for different grains, or you are really concerned about extracting astringent flavors from dark grains but in that case you would likely throw them in at the end of the mash or steep them separately. but until you get the hang of your system, and really find that you need to do something else, don't overcomplicate things!

HbgBill, Wednesdays are brew days for me . Brewing a Southern English ale today. Sparge in 30min. I usually mill my crystal and chocolate malts with the base malt. I'm experimenting with cold steeping for stouts, where a lot more dark grains are used, though.

I did some searching on the internet yesterday and came across a podcast by BeerSmith.. where he interviewed Gordon Strong. It is quite worthwhile spending the time to visit that video. I think it was dated May 3 or 5 2012..

He likened letting all these dark grains cook in the mash tun for a long time like drinking old coffee that has sat in the office urn for half a day. I remember those days

These grains don't have to mash as they have been killed by the high roasting temps.

His suggestion is to throw them into the mash at lautering/vorlauf (because he admits he is lazy) Otherwise, make a tea out of it while you are doing the boil and add the tea to the wort at the end.. long enough to pasteurize it. IIRC, he felt this was the better.. but he remains 'lazy'.

His other point, either in this video or another, was to consider FWH'ing.. Saying it makes a world of difference. He doesn't like Dry Hopping either.. saying it leads to too much vegetal tones.